SOIL SURVEY OF LOUISA COUNTY, IOWA. 



By L. VINCENT DAVIS, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, In Charge, and 

 J. AMBROSE ELWELL, of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station.— Area 

 Inspected by THOMAS D. RICE. 



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DESCRIPTION OF THE AREA. 



Louisa County lies in the southeastern part of the State of Iowa, 

 and is bordered on the east by the Mississippi River, which separates it 

 from the State of Illinois. Its greatest dimension from east to west 

 is 28 miles, and from north to south 24 miles. The area is 390 square 

 miles, or 253,440 acres. 



In general, the county consists of two areas of upland drift plain 

 and two belts of low bottom land. One of the lowland belts, the 

 Mississippi bottoms, occurs along the east- 

 ern margin of the count}^; the other trav- 

 erses the county in a northwest-southeast 

 direction along the Iowa River and sepa- 

 rates the two areas of upland plain. 



At the northern boundary of the county 

 the Mississippi River bottoms are 5 miles 

 wide, but they gradually narrow south- 

 ward, and are only 1^ miles wide on the 

 south line of Township 75. In Township 

 74 the width is from I-3- to 2 miles, but to the south the width 

 increases again to about 5 miles which is constantly niamtained to the 

 county boundary. An elevation known as Great Sand Mound ex- 

 tends into the county in sec. 4, T. 75 N., R. 2 W., from Muscatine 

 County. It rises abruptly about 30 feet above the surrounding bot- 

 toms. It is a remnant of an old terrace. Its area in Louisa County 

 is approximately 1 square mile. With the exception of this mound 

 and another, very small and less elevated, in the eastern part of sec. 

 18, T. 75 N., R. 2 W., practically the entire area of the Mississippi 

 bottoms would be subject to overflow were it not for the levee. 

 Numerous sloughs occur tlu-oughout these bottoms, the largest of 

 which is Muscatine Slough, which extends into the county on the 

 north near the outer edge of the bottom. This slough finally empties 

 into the Iowa River 2 miles north of Toolosboro. The depressed 

 areas known as Lake Klum, formerly a lagoon connecting with Mus- 

 catine Slough, and Lake Odessa, an enlargement of the same slough, 

 have been drained by artificial ditches. The topography of the 



Fig. 1.— Sketch map showing location 

 of the Louisa County area, Iowa. 



